Small defeats: I fell asleep at 630 and woke up at 1230. I kinda forget how I passed the night. read some, looked at some stories, wrote a postcard. I fell back asleep around 6 and woke up at 8. When I got up I looked outside to see what the weather was like. I started looking at how people were dressed and immediately realized the futility of it all, since everyone was dressed in winter coats and scarves—how I might dress if it was 30 out—and it was 70 and sunny. I had a pretty big breakfast, which ended up being a good idea since I wouldn't eat again until 630.
I got directions to the bus station from my friend the German/English speaking receptionist, and ended up at the local terminal, which was pretty much useless. For the experience, I took the bus back to the hotel. With traffic, it took about as long as walking. I was walking back to the hotel for new instructions when I ran into Saïd, who greeted me with a "Hey, my friend!" I was surprised, so I responded in French. He responded, "Ah, vous parlez français!" and was subsequently more talkative. He said he'd get a deal on a taxi ride to Tipasa for me and we sat down and talked world politics. An interesting business, I can't recount the conversation blow for blow, but I thought it was interesting that he gave credit to the Americans for apologizing for their foreign policy faux pas where the French just tried to let things slide (en indochine, par exemple). He talked about the new Algerian strategies to avoid being targeted for submission by world superpowers (more or less playing the oil stakes off each other), and the eventuality of forming an OPEC for natural gas. The other thing he said was that his generation was different than the ones before in that the ones before had always ended up compromising with the outside world, then a generation later the outside world broke their end of the deal. He said that the problems were to be resolved here and now. Even if it meant a bunch of unrest and violence now, at least if wouldn't be passed down to the next generation.
The cabbie arrived and took me away, and it was immediately nice to get out of the city. The countryside reminded me of what I've seen in Central America in terms of foliage and china in terms of development. Lots of concrete shells of buildings in various stages of construction and disrepair. The cabbie and I chatted in French and sometimes Arabic (I didn’t get those parts…), and he referred to me constantly as "Monsieur Jacob". I was amused. There were a lot of police roadblocks, so I asked about obligatory military service (yes, two years) and civilian gun ownership (no). We got to Tipasa and he thought he'd guide me around and take me back. He kept telling me I wasn't in security there, but after a point, I am nowhere. Also, what's going to happen? Also, what's he going to do about it? I paid him and went on my way.
The ruins at Tipasa were as magical as advertised. There were extensive and pretty untouched, especially by the authorities. That is to say that, within reason, I had the run of the place. The first thing I did was curl into a corner of the amphitheater and read Camus's essay 'Noces à Tipasa". It was a good combination, even though he was describing the place in the springtime. It certainly hasn't changed in the 70 years since writing. The second reading, enhanced by the place or otherwise, was inspired. I walked down to the water and touched it. The Mediterranean still tastes terrible (that is, more so than your average salt water). I ended up striking up a conversation with a security guard who showed me the mosaics in the graveyard and a stele with a Camus quote on it (which I promptly found in my copy of Noces). He said if I came back tomorrow he'd have me for dinner at his house. I said I wouldn't be around, but it was a nice offer. It's funny, he was one of those people who was really nice to me, but I'm not so sure he was a good person. Like if I were someone else he might not have been nice to me (he was a Berber and had lots of subtle jabs at the Arabs). One thing I got out of my conversation with him was that when working in Libya, he had been paid in US dollars, which is bizarre, since I'm pretty sure the US and Libya don't have economic relations. He even showed me his pay stub, so I know he wasn't making things up. His friend came over and offered us drinks from a bottle of water. I drank some before realizing it wasn't fresh, just a bottle filled with tap water. Oh well.
I was looking at rugs in a shop, and upon deciding to buy one, realized I didn’t have the cash. I thought, no problem, I'll just exchange some quick. The store owner sent me with a kid to the bank, where we were sent to another bank, where we were sent to another bank, and eventually gave up. It was an interesting walk because the kid, Mohamed, was 21 too. His French was marginally worse than mine, and he said that he didn't get a consistent education since he grew up in the 90s (see 1992 military coup). It's funny how he's lived the same time period as I have in a completely different way. Since I didn’t have the money on me, the storeowner sent me off with the rug, saying Mohamed would come into town to collect payment tomorrow. I was surprised that he'd trust a stranger like that and/or go to the effort of sending someone into a city 80km away to sell a rug. Either way, I'm good for it.
The bus ride cost precisely 6% the price of the taxi ride. It was also exciting since it was packed with people going about their daily business. At one point a group of kids came on and packed into my row. They were practicing their French and English, and one of them kept saying, "Have you ever been to copa cabana beach?" It was ridiculous rush hour traffic coming back. For a while, we were stuck behind a pampers truck. Also, just for the record, gas here is around 20DA per liter, which comes out to around $1.20 a gallon. I guess it pays to be an oil producing country.
When I got back I hit up an internet café, then the restaurant L'arc en ciel before crashing back at the hotel. I've made it to 820 already, I'll try to go for 10 before sleeping, see if I wake up early then. Tomorrow is changing money and paying Mohamed, then potentially the beach at Bouisseville or a deep exploration of the casbah. One of these days I'll be heading out to Oran. I'm kinda looking forward to spending more time out of Algiers, but we'll see what can be done.
Note! I think most of my photographs that are worth having will have been taken illegally, cause apparently it's illegal to take pictures of government property. So the pictures out of my window of the port, anything in Tipasa, &c. It's a funny way to make photography interesting, having to be sneaky about it all the time. I don't think it's ruined too many of my shots, though I've wished to be invisible more than once to take pictures of people in action and such.
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